Saturday, October 13, 2007

This is a possibly interesting thing that I didn't realize till I read your Morrison reviews. When -- in one of Morrison's earliest "New X-Men" issues -- Professor X reveals to the world that he's a mutant, resulting in a large change in tone and direction for the comic, he does so while under the mental influence of Cassandra, a villain. This is actually a canny use of tradition on Morrison's part. In Giant-Sized X-Men #1, when Professor X recruits all the new X-Men, he does so under the mental influence of the villlain, Krakoa (this is explicitly stated in GSX #1). And when Professor X recruited the New Mutants, the first X-Men spinoff back circa 1983, he does so because he's got an alien egg growing inside him that is influencing his decisions and making him recruit superhuman hosts for more eggs. So it's like, every major decision in Professor X's life regarding the X-Men has come about because of an external, and malign, factor. I have to give Morrison credit for that one -- it was pretty shrewd.

Neil Shyminsky wrote:

That's a fantastic point, but also causes me to wonder - was Krakoa's influence taken into consideration when Xavier was villified for putting together that first team of 'new' X-Men? The one featuring Havok and Cyclops' other brother, the team that was thought dead and prompted Xavier to recruit the 'new' team in GSX #1? Because I think it would be pretty silly for Morrison to earn all of these reprimands from X-Men traditionalists that have since followed when the guys that have taken over seem, in fact, much worse at paying attention to some major continuity points.

Jason Powell wrote:

Krakoa's influence over Xavier has been tacitly ret-conned over the years. It's not mentioned in Classic X-Men #1, for example, and Scott Lobdell did a scene in X-Men #300, where we learn that Xavier had already found Nightcrawler, Storm, et al even before he founded the first team, and could "foresee them becoming the team's second generation." (Groan.)

But Krakoa's influence over Xavier is explicitly and entirely ret-conned in the story you mention, "Deadly Genesis," in which all of Krakoa's dialogue is ret-conned as having not really happened -- up to and including Krakoa's line about having "planted the suggestion to get more mutants into the mind of the crippled one," or whatever the line is in Giant-Sized #1. According to Deadly Genesis, Krakoa couldn't speak, and Professor X was fooling everybody into thinking he could as part of a cover-up. So all that dialogue of Krakoa's that the X-Men heard and we read was "actually" manufactured by Xavier.

I don't know the details of it beyond that, having only skimmed the trade at Barnes and Noble. I certainly don't mind ret-conning Giant Sized X-Men #1, because that story as originally published makes absolutely no sense. From what I understand, "Deadly Genesis" does cover all its bases as far as "continuity" goes, making sure that all the contradictions are addressed and smoothed over in some way. If it gets a pass from continuity buffs, it's probably earned.

As for whether it's a good story in its own right ... that, I can't really speak to. Seemed like a good example of a certain flavor of "contiuity porn," wherein continuity is trashed, but in a way that makes certain elements of past stories make more sense, rather than less, so continuity buffs really dig it. Ten years ago I probably would've loved it. These days I think it's just a bemusing curiosity.

About Me

Geoff Klock has a big degree from a fancy-pants university. He wrote some books on superheroes and poetry like 10 years ago. Also essays on film, and TV and teaching. You have Google, right? He spoke at the Met once, and inspired a name of a villain in Matt Fraction's Casanova, which is a really good comic book. He made a crazy mash up of like 200 movie and TV clips quoting Hamlet. Geoff teaches mostly writing, but also Old Brit Lit and Film, at BMCC. He rides a bicycle to get there. He is very good at Facebook?

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Jason Powell has taken on the yeoman's job of doing an issue by issue analysis of Chris Claremont's 17 year Uncanny X-Men run in an effort to make me feel bad for saying Morrison invented all kinds of things he did not in his New X-Men run, and for spelling Claremont "Clairmont" in my superhero book.

Scott McDarmont (Scott91777) is an Instructor Of English at Radford University, Radford VA, an avid reader of books by guys named Chuck, he usually “waits for the trade” on comics unless Frank Miller is somehow involved. He owns more Def Leppard CDs than Bob Dylan CDs and he is ‘Ok’ with this and, while he may answer different publicly, he secretly feels that The Empire Strikes Back is the best movie ever made. He also feels that there are two kinds of people in the world: Indiana Jones people and John McClane people. He considers himself an Indiana Jones person

Jill Duffy, girl reporter, is a professional writer and editor in New York. She spent five years covering video game development in both San Francisco and London, examining the art, science, and business of the industry, and in 2006 was named one of the top 100 most influential women in the game industry. Her work has appeared in The Examiner newspaper in San Francisco, where she was the food section editor, as well as Game Developer, Gamasutra.com, Intelligent Enterprise, DigitalTrends.com, and several other publications. She holds a BA in English from the University at Buffalo. Indeed, she is on the Twitter and also keeps a blog about food.

Andy Bentley is a graphic designer in upstate New York. The first series of Batman movies got him in a comic book store and the DC animated series made him a life long fan. His senior thesis was a short film on the culture of comic books. Animal Man, Starman, and Preacher are among his favorite comic runs. He is an avid toy collector and enjoys playing basketball, mash-ups, karaoke and dark beers. He will be sequestered most of September with The Beatles: Rock Band.